MONOPOLY OF TRANSPORTATION. 6oi 



the farmers should have received 20 cents a bushel more 

 than they got, or the sum of $36,000,000. Of corn we 

 exported 187,000,000 bushels, on which the extortion 

 amounted to $37,000,000, or a total of $73,000,000 on these 

 two cereals, But the mischief does not stop here, as the 

 shipping price governs the local markets, the farmer is 

 compelled to sell to the feeder, the miller and others, at the 

 reduction caused by extortionate freight charges. 



Jeremiah S. Black, ex-judge of the supreme court and 

 ex-attorney-general of the United States, in speaking of 

 the extortions of the railroad companies of the United 

 States, says: "They express their determination to charge 

 as much as the traffic will bear; that is to say, they will 

 take from the profits of every man's business as much as 

 can be taken without compelling him to quit it In the 

 aggregate, this amounts to the most enormous, oppressive 

 and unjust tax that ever was laid on the industry of any 

 people under the sun. The irregularity with which this 

 tax is laid, makes it still harder to bear. Men go into 

 business which may thrive at present rates, and will find 

 themselves crushed by the burdens unexpectedly thrown 

 upon them after they get started. It is the habit of rail- 

 road companies to change their rates of transportation 

 often and suddenly, and, in particular, to make their 

 charges ruinously high without any notice at all. The 

 farmers of the Great West have made a large crop of grain, 

 which they may sell at fair prices if they can have it 

 carried to eastern ports, even at the unreasonably high 

 rates of last summer. But just now it is said that the 

 railway companies have agreed among themselves to raise 

 the freight 5c per hundred weight, which is equal to an 

 export tax upon the whole crop of probably $75,000,000. 

 The farmers must submit to this highway robbery or else 

 keep the products of their land to rot on their hands." 



"A committee of the United States Senate reported, 



40 



